# A chat

> One thread, one agent, and the folders you point it at. It keeps running whether or not you are looking, stopping a turn is one button, and you can have several at once.

A chat is one thread, one agent you are typing to, and the folders you have
pointed it at — the same word the panel uses, on the button that starts one. It
is the screen you will spend your time on.

One agent is who *you* are talking to rather than how many are working. Turn the
[crew](https://beafk.app/docs/what-a-crew-is.md) on and that agent hands pieces of the job to
others; each piece is a chat of its own, with its own agent, opened from
a card in this one. See [watching a crew](https://beafk.app/docs/watching-a-crew.md).

![a chat — what was asked, the work folded up, and the answer with its renders](https://beafk.app/docs-shots/chat.webp)

## Starting one

**New** on [the home screen](https://beafk.app/docs/the-home-screen.md), pick an agent, say what you
want. The folder comes from where you are, and the model and permission mode
come from whatever you last set.

## More than one folder

A chat **runs in** one folder and can **carry** several. The first is where the
agent is started — its working directory. The others are folders it is told
about at the start and allowed to work in. Eight in all, the first included.

That is for the job that spans two checkouts: the API and the app that calls it,
a library and the service that vendors it. They are picked from the folder chip
above the message box, which names the first one and says how many are riding
with it.

Promoting one of the others makes it the working directory, and the one it
replaces stays in the set — switching which checkout the agent writes in should
not quietly drop the other from the question.

A [crew](https://beafk.app/docs/what-a-crew-is.md) inherits the lot: a piece of work can be started
in any folder the chat is carrying, which is what lets one sentence move both
repositories.

## While it works

You see what it is doing as it does it: the files it reads, the commands it
runs, the diffs it writes. Long stretches fold up so the thread stays readable,
and tapping one unfolds it.

You do not have to watch. Put the phone away and come back.

## Saying the next thing

Type whenever you like. If the agent is busy, your message queues and is picked
up when the turn ends. You can queue several.

## Stopping it

The stop button ends the turn. What has already been written to disk stays
written — stopping is not an undo.

## Marking it done

When a turn ends, the tail of the chat offers to mark it done. A done
chat drops out of the active list without being deleted: it is still
there, still readable, still resumable.

## Several at once

You will end up with several running, and the panel is built for it:

- **The shelf** — a row of chips above the message box: the chat you are in,
  the ones you have written to, and any that are working or waiting on you.
  Each says which agent and how it stands. Tap to switch.
- **The corner** — put a chat down into the corner of the screen and it keeps
  going while you do something else: open git, read the logs, start another
  thread. Tap it to come back up. One at a time — putting another down takes
  its place.
- **On a wide screen** — the rail keeps every chat on the machine a tap away,
  with the one you are reading open beside it. How the list is grouped is the
  same four ways as [the home screen](https://beafk.app/docs/the-home-screen.md#the-sidebar).

## It outlives everything

Nothing here belongs to your browser. Come back after an hour or a day and the
panel reattaches: a turn that was running is still running, and what happened
while you were gone is in the thread, in order.

Exactly what it survives is on [closing the tab](https://beafk.app/docs/closing-the-tab.md).

## Deleting one

Chats are deleted to the machine's trash, not removed. One press brings
one back for thirty days. See [the trash](https://beafk.app/docs/the-trash.md).

---

beafk documentation · Your first machine · https://beafk.app/docs/a-chat

In this section:
- Your first machine — https://beafk.app/docs/your-first-machine.md
- How your phone reaches it — https://beafk.app/docs/reaching-your-machine.md
- Signing an agent in — https://beafk.app/docs/signing-an-agent-in.md
- A chat — https://beafk.app/docs/a-chat.md (this page)

Every page, one line each: https://beafk.app/docs/llms.txt
All of it in one file: https://beafk.app/docs/llms-full.txt